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The encoding of a message from a sending device to prevent unauthorized eavesdropping along the transmission line, the receiving device uses the same algorithm as the transmission device to decode the incoming message.

It looks as if we have a compressed file with password protection here, but, as encryption is mentioned in the thread title, I suspect that we are looking at a .rar file, as I believe that they use the password to "scramble" the data in some way, if not truly "encrypt" it.

Obviously a compressed file is no problem so long as you use software that understands the compression method. The ones I use are WINRAR, Peazip and 7zip. WINRAR is a (morally) pay for product, but it is up to you, as all you get is a nag screen after the 40 day trial.

I haven't looked at this in many years, but DOS and then Windows came with a space saving compression utility. If you needed to open files on a hard drive that had been compressed using DOS you needed to run the exact same version of DOS. I don't know about Windows................

Where you have a .rar file that is password protected it is another matter. Sure there is stuff on the internet that claims to do the job, but I would consider it to be mostly snake oil, and not worth paying for.

I don't care what software you have, If you give me a .rar file with a password of 15 characters or more I wouldn't even bother to attempt to crack it............ I would be looking at months if not years; and that is on my Phenom II x6 3.2~3.8GHz with 8GB of DDR3/1333MHz and SATA2 drives.

I believe that .zip files are somewhat simpler, but I have no idea by how much that is so.

Now, if you daisy-chained a dozen Playstation3 processors on a special rig with custom software it might be a slightly different story, but it would still take some time. ....................sorry, I forgot to bookmark a link to that article

I don't care what software you have, If you give me a .rar file with a password of 15 characters or more I wouldn't even bother to attempt to crack it............ I would be looking at months if not years; and that is on my Phenom II x6 3.2~3.8GHz with 8GB of DDR3/1333MHz and SATA2 drives.

I believe that .zip files are somewhat simpler, but I have no idea by how much... (

Distributed processing? that's an urban myth IMO. OK even with a voluntary contribution like SETI or Folding At Home have, you have to have a pretty good management infrastructure, to handle packets/segments that never completed. OK I could do better on my home network by linking the machines, but if you make 6 months 4 months who cares?

With stolen bot resources it becomes a management nightmare.

That still doesn't address the issue of the crypto-strength?

If you like we could do a little experiment? Like I could post password protected files in .zip and .rar formats and we could see if anyone can crack them in say a week?

The only serious answer I am aware of at present is the games machine processor option............like 12 processors can beat a 1,000 (thousand) node supercomputer because the architecture just happens to be entirely suitable to crypto applications.

If you like we could do a little experiment? Like I could post password protected files in .zip and .rar formats and we could see if anyone can crack them in say a week?

I think that would be a fun general type of challenge. Not necessarily just zip and rar, and also not just things as straight forward as say an MD5 hash. Just small hacking challenges. That would be nice.

OK I will give it a bit more thought and do something over the weekend. I am thinking that it is not only the fun challenge idea but the information we would get on what software and hardware was used?

You see regular stuff like processors and videocards being tested and software like compression utilities, but not fringe stuff like cracking tools? or maybe I don't look in the right places